Biotech Strategy Blog

Commentary on Science, Innovation & New Products with a focus on Oncology, Hematology & Cancer Immunotherapy

Posts from the ‘Biomarkers’ category

Is blood TMB ready for prime time?

One key emerging area of growth (and importance) in cancer research is the validation, and hopefully clinical use, of more convenient and less invasive biomarker tests based on body fluids rather than tumour biopsies aka ‘liquid biopsies’.

With a glut of recent data now available from several trials, some of which might be considered controversial, and more to come in the next raft of cancer conferences, it seemed a good opportunity to take stock and see where we are, what we have learned, and importantly, where we are heading in this fledgling field.

In the BSB hot seat today we have our latest thought leader interview, where we discuss these issues and gain their perspectives on the latest round of data with blood TMB and whether it is turning out to be clinically useful or not…

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Can we use exosomes for immune monitoring?

One of the ongoing challenges with cancer immunotherapy is monitoring response to treatment.

Even if you are one of the minority of people who do respond to cancer immunotherapy, many responders go on to develop acquired resistance or experience immune escape resulting in a loss of response to therapy, which means we need to be able to detect what is happening in the immune system of a cancer patient in order then identify the next treatment option.

Dr Whiteside in the poster hall at #AACR18

Could the proteins and nucleic acids carried by virus sized microvesicles called exosomes – present in their billions in blood plasma – provide insights into biomarkers of response to therapy and what is happening in the tumour?

Some people think they can, while others remain skeptical.

We think it’s cool area of research, worthy of consideration and following as we continue to explore various biopsy and blood/plasma approaches.

One person at the forefront of exosome research is Dr Theresa Whiteside from the University of Pittsburgh, where she’s a Professor of Pathology, Immunology and Otolaryngology.

At the recent 2018 annual meeting at AACR, she kindly spoke about her innovative work over the past year in what is now an exploding field of research…

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ASCO18 Preview on Biomarkers of Response

Chicago Loop Train

In this latest ASCO 2018 Preview, we take a look at tissue and blood based biomarkers to see what we can learn and whether they look useful or not for predicting which patients should receive a therapy or not.

There’s quite a lot we can learn from the latest data from the initial abstracts ahead of the meeting in order to be better prepared about what to expect in Chicago.

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Bench to bedside and back again

Can we break through the barriers of a hostile tumour microenvironment?

Who would have thought that after 30 years of no new therapies that urothelial carcinomas would suddenly be almost constantly in the spotlight with enticing words like cancer immunotherapy, biomarkers, tumour microenvironment, translational immunology etc?

And yet it has happened – with a lot more to come in this highly competitive niche too.

Prior to AACR in Chicago, we highlighted TGFβ in our Preview series as an important emerging target that is gathering attention and may be relevant in tumour types, such as urothelial carcinoma and ovarian cancer.

After the meeting, Dr Paul Rennert (CSO, Aleta Biotherapeutics) noted:

I don’t disagree with either of these sentiments – there was a reason we interviewed a lot of NK cell enthusiasts recently and we have since been rolling out our thought leader mini-series focused on TGFβ. Yesterday, we kicked off with perspectives from an academic researcher active in this field and tomorrow will showcase some practical clinical perspectives.

On deck today, we have a interview with a research scientist who has conducted both basic and translational work for a discussion about how he sees the learnings that have arisen from bench to bedside and back again.

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AACR18 Preview 5: is TGFβ an emerging cancer target?

Finding patterns in the mosaic of cancer biology

In our fifth AACR preview of the annual meeting of 2018, we switch directions from a tumour type to explore a novel and emerging pathway of interest.

Each year we pick a different target to explore; this year it’s the turn of TGFβ.

There’s a lot going on here, both preclinically and clinically that should interest BSB readers who are keen to see new developments in the IO landscape.

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Innate Pharma – converting science into the clinic

Every year for our annual AACR Preview coverage we like to mix things up and explore what’s happening with different targets, pathways, and even companies.

In this latest post for #AACR18, we take a look at a company that has historically been involved in R&D associated with the innate immune system. As new molecules have evolved against different targets, researchers have begun to realise that we can actually target both the innate and adaptive immune systems together rather than one or the other.

We have covered several clinical developments from Innate Pharma on lirilimumab, but they are actually more than a one compound biotech and have a growing pipeline of antibodies against several novel targets, some of which are unique to the company.

This isn’t just about the science behind the pipeline as we also explore facets of corporate strategy and where the company is headed in the near to medium term future.  While in London earlier this month, we caught up with Dr Mondher Mahjoubi (CEO) and Prof Eric Vivier (CSO) for a candid and detailed fire side chat.

There was plenty to discuss and some interesting new developments to highlight…

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Potential of Exosomes in Pancreatic Cancer

MD Anderson, Houston

Houston, Texas – At the First Annual Symposium on Pancreatic Cancer organized by Ronald DePinho MD and colleagues at the MD Anderson Cancer Center on Monday, one of the presentations that caught my attention was on exosomes.

Raghu Kalluri MD PhD (@KalluriLab) gave an excellent talk on, “Exploiting the Biology of Exosomes for Diagnosis and Therapy of Pancreatic Cancer.”

What were some of the key take homes from his presentation?

He kindly spoke to BSB in Houston and talked about the direction he is going in this rapidly evolving field of research.

Here’s a short snippet from the interview where he talks about one aspect of this approach and how it might be useful (the others are covered in more detail below):

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Why we should be cautious about IO-IO combination trials

Killer T cells surround a cancer cell Source: Alex Ritter, Jennifer Lippincott Schwartz & Gillian Griffiths, NIH

With a series of high profile phase 3 cancer immunotherapy combination trials expected to readout throughout 2018, what can we expect given the promise they may offer?

While many people tend to assume that a doublet should produce more efficacy than monotherapy, this isn’t always the case and there’s also the risk of increased toxicities.

That said, are there any hints and learnings we can garner from preclinical and clinical research that might help us assess some of the underlying challenges inherent in these randomised controlled trials?

I say yes there are and here we take a look at a couple of important indicators that may help understand what to expect ahead of time.

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All that you leave behind

SITC2017 Poster Halls

National Harbor, MD: It’s time for the first of our Gems from the Poster Halls following the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) annual meeting over the weekend.

It’s time for a look at biomarkers of response and some novel approaches in development. In the past we have covered circulating tumour cells (CTCs), cell free DNA (cfDNA), circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) and even exosomes.

As Monthy Python would say — now for something really different…

What about a more integrated approach?

Yes, it’s possible and no, I’m not talking about the classical nonogram either.

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Going beyond PD-L1 expression as a immune biomarker

One of the things that I’ve heard repeatedly over the last year is that many researchers want a better biomarker of response for checkpoint therapies than PD-L1 expression by IHC.

National Harbor

Indeed, we could expand that statement more broadly to say that there’s a real need for a better predictive biomarker of response to any immunotherapy, since there are more approaches out there now and not just checkpoint blockade. Plus combinations are evolving, complicating things further.

Fair enough, but what’s happening in this space?  Anything, Bueller?

We’ve covered a few emerging ideas in the past, although they were based on retrospective analysis – usually with a small N – and remain to be validated in prospective clinical trials.

There’s quite a few groups now much more active in research in this space, from academia to industry.  This is a good time to take stock and look at some of the emerging technologies that might be making a splash later if the data pans out.

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